Tag Archives: reflection

Two wolves, 15 years later

The memory dates back 30 years, to the summer of 1993. The original writing dates back 15 years, a reflection on Remembrance Day 2008.

It’s one of my favourite pieces I’ve ever written, and it seems more relevant today than it did 15 years ago. I fear that we are farther away from peace in the Middle East than we have been since the 6 Day War of ’67, the summer before I was born. I wish there was a peaceful way forward, but I don’t see it. The good wolf is going hungry.

I’m not 100% sure the ‘two wolves’ story is Cherokee, and it’s sometimes shared as being told by a grandmother, not a grandfather. No matter the origin, it is the perfect backdrop to my post, and it speaks to the idea that these themes are nothing new to humanity. Unfortunately we don’t truly learn from our mistakes, and so history repeats itself… I hope that enough people will feed the good wolf that maybe, just maybe, we can find ways to live and love in harmony, rather than focus on hate, anger, and our differences in a way that make us act more like animals, and less like humans. Less like hungry wolves, no matter their disposition.

Two wolves

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. 

“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. 

One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” 

“The other wolf is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.” 

“The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person too.” 

The grandson thought about this for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win? 

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

It was the summer of 1993 and I was in Israel playing Water Polo at the Maccabiah Games. Certain memories stick with me to this day:

  • 40,000+ cheering fans at opening ceremonies
  • Floating in the Dead Sea
  • Having a semi-automatic machine gun unintentionally, but repeatedly bumping into me on a dance floor
  • Masada
  • Visiting Jerusalem and the Wailing Wall

My first visit to Jerusalem held a surprise. We had a day off before the semi finals and our team decided to take the bus tour to Jerusalem. I was ‘tagging along’ rather than being one of the people who chose what we did, so I neglected to read the advertisement for the bus tour. I neglected to notice that the bus first stopped at the Holocaust Museum.

I hopped on the bus, camera packed, ready to visit the sights of this ancient city. Imagine my surprise when the bus pulled into the parking lot of the Museum. “Where are we?”

My happy-go-lucky-tourist-with-camera-in-hand attitude hit a plexiglass wall the moment I walked in the door. There in front of me, on a pedestal, was a plexiglass cube about 40cm³ filled with gold teeth. Early on in the concentration camps these were pulled from the mouths of Jews on their way to the gas chambers, but it was quickly realized that dead Jews don’t scream and so they started pulling these valuable gold teeth out after the Jews had been gassed.

The Hall of Names containing Pages of Testimony commemorating the 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. Photo credit: David Shankbone

The museum tour was quiet and solemn. Two translated letters, one from a German Commandant and the other from a German Captain,  also stick with me to this day. Forgive my paraphrasing, this was over 15 years ago.

The one from the German Concentration Camp Commandant was sent to another Commandant inviting him to come and see the new gas chambers where they could now, ‘efficiently exterminate 2,000 rather than just 750 Jews at a time.”

Dehumanize the targets.

The one from the Captain was giving advice to other Captains and it said, ‘Be sure that when executing Jews by firing squad to have at least two of your soldiers shooting at each Jew. Although this may seem like a waste of bullets, it removes the guilt that your soldiers feel since they know that even if they did not shoot, that the Jew would still be terminated. The cost of the extra bullet is worth the removal of guilt from your soldiers and the boost in morale.’

Depersonalize the deed.

Both of these perverse letters have had a lasting impression on me because in their own sick way, they make perfect sense. If you are going to be in the business of murder, it makes sense to think of it as extermination, as we do not think twice about exterminating bothersome bugs. If you are going ask soldiers to be obedient and murder for you, it makes sense that you remove guilt from their task.

Rationalize evil.

We do that today, after all we have ‘counter-terrorism’ and we do illegal things in the name of ‘national security’ and our soldiers die in ‘friendly fire’ and of course we don’t support this, rather we ‘support our troops’.

Which wolf are we feeding?

I’ve taught a student of the Bahia faith, whose family had to flee Iran in the middle of the night for fear of being murdered.

I’ve taught a student who hiked for three days in the mountains of Afghanistan with his pregnant mom, younger brother and father, as they fled the new regime. Mom was a teacher in Afghanistan, but when I met her she was washing dishes in a restaurant.

I’ve taught a Serbian who did her Grade 8 public speech on the cruelty of the United Nations. Her Grandfather and best friend were blown up in a crowded shopping mall by a UN plane. Her life was spared because she forgot her purse in the car and went running back to get it.

Who is the enemy?

My life has been very different. As an immigrant to Canada I moved to a mostly Greek neighbourhood and had three close friends that welcomed me into their houses and their lives. I followed these friends to a High School where, for different reasons, they all left by Grade 11, leaving me to fend for myself for Grades 12 and 13, (Ontario had Grade 13 back then).

I left high school with 5 very close friends: A Canadian born of Scottish decent, a German, an African Born Shiite Muslim, a Canadian Sunni Muslim, and a Canadian Jew with East Indian decent. Oh and as for me… my wife describes me as a Chinese Jew from Barbados… (I describe myself as Heinz57 or a mutt).

I wore a kilt in the wedding party for Ross, the Canadian Scott, and I lived with Kassim, the Shiite Muslim, in his house for 5 days leading up to his wedding, living as a surrogate brother and participating in every ceremony.

And as for being a Jew, I think most Jews would say that I am not Jewish. You see, Judiasim is a matriarchal religion and my Grandmother, my Mother’s Mother, is to this day a Catholic. She was happily married, a role model marriage like few I’ve seen, to my Jewish Grandfather until he died.

We can co-exist.

When I read Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat I was drawn to the ideas in his very powerful final chapter where he talks of cultures that are stuck on History rather than Hope. There can never be peace in the Middle East if History trumps Hope. Jerusalem taught me that: As a city with great historical significance to three very different religions, Jerusalem should be a sacred and holy place, not a place of hostility and tension.  But where we have ‘anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego,’ we have evil, and we will never have peace.

We remember.

There are parts of History we should not forget. After all, World War One was the ‘war to end all wars’… And so I am writing this on Remembrance Day for a reason. Whether it be concentration camps and the Holocaust or Hiroshima and Nagasaki or genocide in Russia, Rwanda, or East Timor… or any tragic historical event worth remembering… we choose to remember so that we do not repeat our mistakes. We must want and hope that things can be better. We must see lessons learned, not resentment and mistrust. The past will repeat itself if we do not see ‘joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith’… faith that tomorrow can be better than today.

And the battle continues…

“The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person too.” 

The grandson thought about this for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win? 

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.” 

May you always feed the good wolf.

Related: In Remembrance 2019.

Practice not information or knowing

I have weekly conversations with my uncle. Most days we talk about geometry, but today our conversation was more wide-ranging. One topic we discussed was meditation. My uncle is a practiced meditator and I am on a journey to a really meditative state that seems elusive to me.

I’m better at naming the experience rather than just embodying the experience. I understand the journey, I haven’t truly travelled it like he has. And the fundamental difference is practice.

I don’t spend enough time practicing. I have travelled the part of the journey from being angry every time my mind drifts or focuses on a thought to understanding that this is a natural part of meditation. However, I have not travelled the next part where I’ve truly experience the letting go, and feeling fully in a meditative state. I’ve knocked on the door, but haven’t stepped in.

What’s preventing me? Practice. Making time, and giving myself time to meditate. Instead of a 10 minute guided meditation that is really 4-6 minutes meditating with a little lesson, I need to give myself more time. I have to practice for longer than the point where all I’m doing is bringing myself back from distractions, back from wondering and wandering thoughts.

I know what I need to do. I’m not lacking information, I’m just lacking time, the time to practice. Until then while I can name the experience I will not truly embody the experience.

Error correction

“When you tolerate an error, you rob yourself of learning.

When you ruminate on an error, you rob yourself of happiness.

Notice it, improve it, and move on from it.” ~ James Clear

I really like this quote. It is very insightful. We don’t learn unless we make an effort to adapt, or improve after a failure or an error. But perseverating on our errors isn’t healthy.

Notice, improve, and move on. But how many of us can easily do this?

How many of us repeat mistakes? How many of us spend too much time ruminating and don’t move on? How many of us spend more time worrying about our errors and less time celebrating our successes?

Notice, improve, and move on.

There would be far less learning if we spent more time avoiding mistakes. There would be less improvement, and less to move on from. And so while we are learning from our errors, we need to remember to feel good about the learning we’ve done, and the journey we are on.

Family, fun, and fitness

I am in a tiny hotel gym near the Toronto airport, dictating this while on an elliptical. It’s 9:30 PM and we head home to Vancouver tomorrow morning just after 6 AM. It has been a whirlwind week for us. Leaving our home 2:30 in the morning last week Friday to come here for a memorial celebration of the passing of my dad.

We spent a wonderful few days up at BlueMountain, near Collingwood, with my mom, her four kids, and seven of eight grandkids. Unfortunately, the eighth grandkid was hit with Covid and didn’t recover in time to join us. Still, it was so wonderful to have our family together for the first time in over a decade with all 4 kids and that many grandkids m being present. My dad would have loved it.

My wife, kids, and mom spent the last couple nights in downtown Toronto, went shoe shopping for my mom, visited the Aquarium, and saw a musical, ‘In Dreams’. The play features Roy Orbison music and my mom loved it. We all did. I was worried when it started with a side story of a woman losing her husband, but that wasn’t the focus of the show and didn’t ruin the mood despite the recency of my fathers passing.

Today we went back to my mom’s place, hung out and ordered Caribbean style Doubles from a roti shop. I really wish I could find some good West Indian takeout in Coquitlam, and since I can’t, I always make sure I get some when in Toronto.

I probably should be getting to bed right now with a 3:30 AM wake up call, but I hadn’t had any exercise other than walking at my moms pace for three days now, and I’m not sure what I’ll feel like doing tomorrow after a long day of travel. So, I am using speech to text and panting slightly, unsure of how much editing I will need to do when I get off this machine.

I remember hearing that by the time you’re 18 you have spent roughly 95% of the total time you’ll ever spend with your parents. Losing my dad has really made me put this statistic into perspective. I think about my daughters at 21 and 23, and I’m actually grateful that one still lives with us, and I already see how hard it is to plan to get together with the older one who lives an hours drive and an hour and a half ferry ride away from us.

I’m actually thankful for covid in that it was the reason my siblings and mom started a group chat and that has increased my communication with my mom and sisters. Seeing my sisters’ now grown up kids has been wonderful too, and I really question where the time has gone. It occurred to me that my oldest nephew is older than I was when I had my first kid. That seems so hard to grasp. I am now the generation that I think my parents should be. Looking at old photographs, I find pictures of my parents as adults when they were younger than I am now, and yet in my mind I’m still just a kid… Their kid.

Cardio is done, I’ve edited my voice-to-text writing above and it’s time to put on Enya and do my stretches. I’ll keep thinking and reflecting on my time with family, and then I’ll crank the music and get a little bit of strength exercise in. I like doing a variety of exercises at hotels, using machines I don’t get to use in my simple home gym.

Tomorrow, I travel home then start to worry about catching up at work. It’s going to be a bit painful, but I’m glad to have had this time, and it know how much it meant to my mom… and to me!

Internal dialogue

I find it interesting how the voice in our heads can be so loud. Sometimes it’s like we live two different lives, one in the 3-dimensional world and one in the ethereal space between our ears. Both lives playing out simultaneously and each distracting ourselves from the other.

Sometimes they sync and we become a singularly focused person… both lives becoming one in moments of joy, love, anger, or gratitude, as examples. But often those are high and low moments that draw our mutually focused attentions. Most of our lives they seem to be in minor conflict with each other, fighting for our full attention.

I like the moments when my internal dialogue is quiet, and more focused on being present in the physical world, but there are times when this seems impossible. There are times when the internal dialogue is a complete distraction from reality, in a full on battle for attention. When I’m in this space, the internal dialogue usually wins. These are times that I’m more comfortable being alone than in the presence of anyone. Yet, I don’t feel alone… I’ve got an internal voice keeping me company.

This is neither good nor bad, this is determined by context. If I’m thinking of something dark or gloomy, it can be a bad headspace to be in. But if I’m deep in thought and excited about some new learning or ideas, or if I’m creating or writing, then I could be in a fantastic headspace.

My internal dialogue is like a second world, a second life that lives inside my head, and can be on a continuum from fully engaged in the physical world to almost fully ignorant of my surroundings. Both extreme cases can be wonderful, but it seems I live most of my life balancing the two worlds as best as I can.

The blame game

It’s easier to point a finger outward than it is to point it inward.

It’s more comfortable to see the faults in others than to accept the faults of our own.

It’s less work to hold others accountable than to accept responsibility.

Accusations are not as scary as being vulnerable.

It’s simpler to rationalize than it is to be critically introspective.

Accepting responsibility rather than blaming is hard work. Owning your own shit is hard work. Making things right when things have gone wrong is hard work… especially since sometimes right just means better, and no matter what you do, you can’t get back to the way things used to be.

But when you play the blame game nothing gets better. In fact, things usually get worse. Most punishment and discipline is about blame. Being restorative means sharing the responsibility to make things better.

Accepting ownership of your own actions and consequences, that’s when personal growth happens. That’s when we get unstuck. That’s when we begin to create an empowered reality rather than a sense of victimization.

How do we make things better? That’s not always an easy question to ask, and it’s usually very hard to answer. But the answer is never blame.

Web Logging

I went to my LinkedIn profile last night. I hadn’t really looked at it for a while. It could use a bit of an update, but I’m in no rush. Still, while I was there I saw ‘Open Thinker’ under my experience, which is where I describe my blogging. I was surprised to see this:

I’ve been blogging for over 17 and a half years. I also passed 4 years of blogging daily in July. I’m coming up on 1,500 daily posts.

I had no idea 17 years ago that this would be something I would stick with for so long. I could not have fathomed that I’d be writing every single day on a web log, back when I hit the ‘Publish’ button for the first time.

Instead of feeling tired, and wanting to bring this to a close, I find myself wanting to write more. That doesn’t mean it has gotten a lot easier, I still find writing a challenge. I still can’t predict when I will feel the muse and when I will struggle to get past the blank page. I still get pangs before hitting the Publish button, though the feeling is somewhat muted. I still get pissed off when I find a typo or grammatical error after hitting the Publish button.

And I will continue to write. Maybe not for 17 more years, but I don’t see a reason to stop in the foreseeable future. I am keeping a journal. It just so happens that anyone with an internet connection can read what I’ve written…. including you!

Staying in the discomfort

A couple days ago at our start of the year administrators meeting, we had a presentation by Jo Chrona. She was presenting on learning in Indigenous and anti-racist education, and she said something that still sits with me. She talked about how the learning isn’t easy but the real challenge is sitting, and staying, in the discomfort.

This isn’t an easy thing to do. We spend our days as problem solvers. We see the challenges and the issues we face and we tackle them. But systemic problems are not something with a quick fix, and if we have a ‘fix and move on’ mentality, we aren’t really dealing with the underlying issues. If we move away from uncomfortable issues they don’t really get meaningfully addressed. If we don’t sit in the discomfort, we don’t learn or help our community learn.

But it’s not human nature to stay in an uncomfortable place. This needs to be intentional. Being vulnerable and having the hard conversations, rather than trying to immediately make things better, is when we can really reflect, listen, learn, and heal. And of these four things, listening is the most important. If we are fixing, we aren’t listening.

One of the powerful things about staying and sitting in the discomfort is that we only really learn things well when there is a struggle. And so when we allow ourselves time to struggle, to understand the struggle of others, we create the space for deep learning to happen. We create the opportunity for meaningful learning and meaningful change to happen.

Interview time

Yesterday I interviewed 3 people for a teaching position. I took extensive notes. All 3 interviews were good, and I could see value in hiring any of them. I ranked the candidates 1-3 then I sent my notes to a colleague. I didn’t share any personal information with the colleague, just my notes. He ranked them in the reverse order that I did.

Very interesting.

I looked over my notes again, thought more about how the answers fit with the position and I can totally see what my colleague saw. Now I’m really stuck. I have no idea which way I’m going to go? I have one more interview today, then I’m going to call my colleague and hear his thoughts.

I don’t think bias plays into it. Both the candidate he and I liked are the same gender, and he had no idea based on the answers shared. But this really has me questioning my skills at hiring. Again, it’s hard because all 3 candidates are good. I think my bias, if I have one, might be experience, and both of these candidates have a lot more experience than the one we didn’t choose, what my colleague made me realize when reading over my notes was how much more relevant his choice’s experience was compared to my choice’s.

My lesson learned from this is that if I’m going to take notes, I need to take the time to read them. When I’m asking questions and trying to capture their responses, I’m not committed to analysis of the answer. Also, when I’m interviewing, the order I interview in matters because I have less to compare to with my first versus my last interview and that may create bias.

I need to do the final interview today, then I need to take the time to go over my notes one more time with an objective eye… and I’ll also call my colleague and confer with him. It’s hard to make a decision like this yourself when you don’t have a gut instinct or glaringly obvious choice to make. Sometimes it’s good to ask for help and get a different perspective.

Moments of silence

There was a time when moments of silence were golden. When being alone with my thoughts was quiet and contemplative. When no sound meant calm and inspired serenity.

Now I fill those moments. I listen to books, podcasts, and music. I avoid the silence because that’s when my tinnitus gets loud… and even if I wanted that silence, I wouldn’t get it. My tinnitus is a constant tone, for others it’s like crickets. For anyone who has it, it’s the end of silence.

But there is another kind of silence. It’s the quiet of the mind. It’s like an ocean without waves. This is even more elusive. It is the moments when our minds are not reliving the past or creating unlikely futures. It is when our minds are not thinking about our schedule, worrying about our responsibilities, or planning our next moment, meeting, or meal.

It is when there is nothing to do, but there is no boredom.

It is when nothing is pressing, and there is no need to rush.

It’s also when you don’t seek a distraction. But now the distraction is always there. It looks like Facebook or TikTok, Instagram or Twitter, YouTube or Audible, text or email, WhatsApp or Snapchat.

We have let technology steal away our moments of silence. We are robbed of those golden moments. The dopamine rush of the next notification is too great to resist, and too daunting to allow silence a chance. Silence is no longer a desired state, it is a state of absence to avoid, not a desired state of stillness.

Moments of silence were already elusive, now they are all but nonexistent. I even wonder if for someone younger, who spent their teen years with a smartphone, if silence was ever known, is ever desirable? Or is this just a nostalgic ideal?

It’s quiet now, but my tinnitus sings it’s ever present song, and I put on some background music. The silence is gone.